In Spite of Myself

I do not make friends easily. Oh, I can hold my own in a crowd, and get along with people just fine. I have many business associates with whom I have a good relationship, and those relationships have seemed fairly easy to form.

But real, deep down, lifelong friends. There have been but a few. The kind that no matter how infrequently you talk, you know you can pick up the phone and talk to them again just as easily as before. That no matter how many years pass, or how many differences you have, the bond never weakens. The friends who gain the value of family - the family you choose, rather than the family you are born to.

What makes the difference, I think, is that I know they love me, no matter what I do. They know that when I am unconsciously inconsiderate, that it is not intentional. They accept my inability to remember birthdays, and they love me anyway.

If I do something really wrong, I can call them, tell them about it, and they don't treat me like I have become someone horrifying. Instead, they tell me I can do what I have to in order to make it right again.

I think God knows I need friends like that. When one close friend moved from the town we lived in, He sent my mother to take her place. Recently, I received news that another of those friends had died - just four months after He sent someone else to be there when I needed her.

It isn't all selfish one-sideness. One reason they ARE such good friends, is because they allow me to be there for them too. I'll listen when they are having family struggles, and love them in spite of their flaws - and of course, laugh at their jokes.

They love me in spite of myself - and because of that, I find within myself, the ability to love them in spite of themselves.

Written by Laura Wheeler
Owner, Firelight Web Studio
http://www.firelightwebstudio.com
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